


home is behind, the world ahead

by aceofdiamonds



Series: is that such a stretch of the imagination? [6]
Category: Gossip Girl, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 19:50:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5346470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofdiamonds/pseuds/aceofdiamonds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>blair and harry talk about marriage, among other things</p><p>“I told you you’d love it,” Harry grins. Over the past year Blair has been privy to a lot of Harry’s emotions, some of them taking a while to unfold themselves and others brimming out of him from the second she met him, and this glee that’s dancing across his face is still something that’s rare and special. It’s enough to make Blair lean against him, her hand finding his, and guiding them into a more controlled dance, something she can keep up with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	home is behind, the world ahead

**Author's Note:**

> more of this!! the song they dance to is somebody loves you by betty who which is sort of the inspiration behind this part. writing this verse is so fun. i really want to do a christmas thing. maybe!! dan isn't portrayed the best but behind this crack pairing i love dan and blair together so i like him really. title is from lord of the rings.

 

“What does marriage mean to a wizard?”

Harry frowns. “The same as it does for a Muggle, I suppose. Love and security in the eyes of the law.”

Blair rolls her eyes, pretends to swoon. “You’re so romantic, Potter. ‘Love and security in the eyes of the law.’ You’re making it sound so dull.”

“Sorry,” he laughs, reaching out and pulling her along the sofa so she’s pressed against him. “Why are you asking?”

“I was just _wondering_ ,” she says. “I’m testing your wizard knowledge.”

“After Hermione’s lectures you probably know more than me.”

Hermione has been teaching Blair about everything magical for the last year or so now. She’s covered the wars, the one she was involved in and all the ones before it, and she’s talked about the government and education and magical creatures and Blair Waldorf doesn’t wish to be something other than herself but she thinks if she’d been born with the ability to do magic her world would be a different place. Ron tells her about Quidditch, so enthusiastic even after all the times Blair has reacted with disdain to his statistics and bets. One time he took her to a game his sister was playing in -- the sister Harry used to date. If you ask Blair, she couldn’t tell you who won that match, she was more interested in watching the red-head flying through the air, wondering why Harry left her, and how different she and Blair must be.

“Have you ever thought about marriage?” she asks now, pushing forward with her line of questioning.

Harry makes a sound of bemusement, humming deep in his throat.

They're splitting their time between New York and London and being in New York as the heat begins to creep through the city has Blair wondering about a lot of things. Last summer she had been meeting Harry for the first time, falling into a whole new world so different from everything she’s known, and now they’ve come full circle, this time back into her part of the world. She’s been married twice before, a sad number at only twenty three, but it hasn’t put her off trying again. There’s something stupid in that.

“I haven’t not thought about it,” he says eventually, which kicks up a flare of jealousy inside Blair even though he’s not the one with two divorces behind him. “I could’ve married Ginny,” he offers, knowing Blair is waiting for more. “But I really wasn’t in the right mind-set for that sort of commitment and it wouldn’t have been fair to her if I had asked.”

“And now?”

He exhales sharply, a laugh that tips Blair away from the apprehension building in her stomach. “Is this you asking me, Blair?”

“Please. I’m all for feminism and equality but you won’t see me proposing to any man.”

“Any man?”

“You,” she says. “I won’t be proposing to _you_ , Harry.”

“Okay,” he says easily, and then he kisses her, bringing the conversation to an end without a conclusion.

 

.

 

A few days later Blair’s at the W sorting through a pile of memos when her phone rings.

“Blair,” Harry says when she answers. “I have something ask you.”

“What is it?”

He pauses for a moment, too long, and then, “Will you marry me?”

“You’re not proposing to me over the phone, Harry Potter,” Blair snaps, dropping her phone back into her bag before pulling it out again ten seconds later to call Serena and tell her Harry has just proposed to her over the phone, how is she supposed to feel about that?

“Maybe he was testing the waters,” Serena suggests. “What do you think you would say if he asked for real?”

“I’ve barely known him for a year,” she says, which isn’t a no or a yes. Her mother always said she rushed into things with Louis but then she’d known Chuck most of her life and things ended just as ugly. With Harry there’s the whole wizard thing to take into account, of course, but everything feels easy with him, like she doesn’t have to pretend and put on a show, and isn’t that what love is supposed to be?

“Blair,” Serena prompts her.

“I couldn’t possibly say yes,” she tells Serena, but wheels are turning -- a yes doesn’t feel as stupid as it should.

“Hey! We could have a joint wedding,” Serena teases, laughing when Blair swears loudly. “Watch, B, the W is a respectable place they won’t tolerate that sort of language.”

“You’re the worst,” Blair sighs, and then in the same breath, “Come round later for cocktails?”

“Should I bring Dan?”

“Not if you want to make it through the door -- and no, Harry won’t be here either.”

“But he’s just proposed; you should be celebrating.”

“I can just as easily disinvite you, Serena,” Blair sing-songs, turning back to the memo pile that is threatening to tumble. “Anyway, if I get engaged any time soon you’ll be the first one to know.”

 

.

 

He drops the question into conversations for the next few weeks, always casual, always laughing, but always with a look in his eye that has Blair questioning how deep this goes. Every time Blair replies with some variation of no, in your dreams, Harry, but, like Harry, she’s not completely serious, not entirely sure of her answer.

She knows one time she’ll say yes.

 

.

 

“You've got to listen to music, Blair,” Harry says, kicking his feet up onto the table.

Blair nudges his boots off the table and then swings her legs up into his lap. “Don’t dirty my table,” she says, and then adds, “Of course I listen to music. I’m just not into the whole thrusting and and --” She can’t bring herself to say _twerking_ , just flutters her hand in the air to convey her disgust.

“But you’re missing out on half the enjoyment without all that,” Harry argues.

Which makes no sense at all because, “Harry, I’ve never seen you dance.”

“That’s not true -- what about that ball you made me go to?”

“Ugh. I was trying to block that out.”

It had been a disaster, to put it plainly. Blair had thought taking Harry to Serena’s charity ball would be an ideal way to introduce him to the rest of her world -- well, whatever Harry had mumbled something about a ball at school hadn’t been enough experience to not show Blair up on the dancefloor in front of everyone she knew. He had found it hilarious, introducing himself to Nate and Dan as the only man in England who can’t dance, and then he had spent half the night talking to Nate about the pros and cons of publicity and surveillance.

Dan had made quips about Harry not being her usual asshole type and Nate had said how decent he seemed, but watch all the scars, Blair, that means danger, and Harry had slotted right in.

Harry wordlessly summons Blair’s phone from her bag, asking for permission which she reluctantly grants, before typing something, frowning as he scrolls down the page.

“What are you doing?” she demands, wriggling to catch a look at the screen, but he holds it out of her reach, still searching. “I told you you should get your own phone. Do you know how inconvenient it is to have to tell people your boyfriend doesn’t have a cell phone?”

“I’m so sorry for inconveniencing you, Blair,” Harry says, and then he shouts triumphantly. “Found it!”

It's ridiculous. He pulls her to her feet, tugging her into the middle of her living room, and then he spins them around. The music is loud and fast, a poppy tune about a girl in love, and Blair tries a little to stop herself smiling but Harry is flailing about, his arms catching hers and pulling her close, spinning her away again so they both stumble, and she can’t keep in the giggle that bursts from her.

“I told you you’d love it,” Harry grins. Over the past year Blair has been privy to a lot of Harry’s emotions, some of them taking a while to unfold themselves and others brimming out of him from the second she met him, and this glee that’s dancing across his face is still something that’s rare and special. It’s enough to make Blair lean against him, her hand finding his, and guiding them into a more controlled dance, something she can keep up with.

“It’s not awful,” she admits, rocking onto her toes to kiss him quickly, smiling against his lips. The song oohs and ahhs about being with someone you love and Blair has always taken every little piece about love to heart, even when it has worked out for the worst for her.

Harry follows her kiss down, hand flat on her back and then trailing across her body to the hem of her dress at the top of her thighs. She leans into it, pressing her weight against him, and just as she's considering how she might manoeuvre them somewhere a little more comfortable Harry pulls away.

"Hey."

"Hey."

“Can I ask you something, Blair?”

She lets her head rest against his chest, swaying from side to the side now that the music has changed to something slower, gloomier. “As long as it’s not a proposal,” she murmurs.

“Did you like being married?” he says instead, voice so hesitant she doesn’t have the heart to snap at him even though being reminded of her previous marriages is like a cold knife twisting in her stomach.

“With Louis it was over before it had begun and Chuck -- well, Chuck was an experience; one I wouldn’t recommend to anyone else.”

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly.

She hums a small sound of acknowledgement; focuses on the dancing. They’re good at this kind. The slow kind.

“Hermione’s told you about Time Turners, hasn’t she?”

And now Blair steps back, hands staying on his waist. She shakes her head once, twice, letting the message sink in. “We can’t undo the past, Harry.”

Harry has this need to save everyone. She's heard about it through Hermione and through books and eventually through Harry himself but this side of him has never really presented itself to her. To her he's funny, short-tempered, impulsive, _warm_ , but never the sacrifice-himself-for-the-good-of-everyone hero.

“I’m fine,” she tells him firmly. “What’s done is done.”

“If you’re sure,” he says, ducking his head to press a kiss to her neck.

“Play the song again.”

“Yeah, Blair? You feel like dancing?”

She runs her hand along his cheek, a gentle tap on his chin. “Yes. Now stop talking and dance with me.”

 

.

 

She runs into Dan at the French Culture exhibit in MOMA the Friday after her mother comes back to the city and meets Harry. The meeting had been brief and relatively painless with Cyrus pulling Harry into a fleeting hug being the move that shattered the ice. Her mother hadn’t narrowed her eyes at Blair behind Harry’s back nor had she pushed too much into Harry’s past and at the end of the evening she had said she would love to meet up again, none of that fake cheer in her voice.

In spite of this, or perhaps because of this, Blair has never had the healthiest relationship with her mother, Blair is still toppling somewhere close to the edge three days later. She goes to MOMA because that’s where she likes to go when she needs to sort out her head and when she runs into Dan she finds herself half grateful for him. There’s a reason they’ve always had so much chemistry.

“I thought I might see you here, Blair,” Dan says, nodding his head towards the next room once they’ve both had their fill of the painting taking up most of the wall. “Didn’t expect to see you alone, though.”

“Harry?” she replies, not giving him an inch.

“Unless there’s someone else hidden up your sleeve,” and he doesn’t say Chuck but he’s never far from it.

“Harry’s at home, reading,” she says, turning her chin up to the ceiling, eyes fixed on the splodge of paint high in the corner. They call everything art here. It twists at the cynical part of her mind and lets her know she can do this too if she wants, be creative this way. She knows fashion is art; she is an artist.

Dan huffs a quiet laugh, hands deep in his pockets.

“What?”

“I just didn’t think he was the reading type.”

And Blair rolls her eyes and remembers why she spent so many years calling Dan pretentious. It’s not a trait you can grow out of without effort. “Because you know him so well.”

Dan lifts a hand in a gesture of surrender. “All I’m saying, last time I saw him he was rambling on about a made-up sport from Britain. Excuse me if I don’t connect that with the mind of an intellectual.”

“Fuck sake, Humphrey,” Blair snaps, quiet and harsh in the cool light of the gallery. “I’m not going to stand here and let you talk shit about my boyfriends and how much better you are as a person --” Dan opens his mouth to cry _Serena_ but she cuts him off “--you love Serena and I love Harry and I’m not going to stop loving him just because you’re obsessed with being the best man in the room.”

They move to the next room where the exhibits are clustered in the centre and the rest of the area is open and clean. Dan sighs, noise too loud for such a room. “I didn’t mean it like that. You’re right, Blair, I don’t know Harry. He seems -- he seems like a nice guy.”

“He’s not an idiot,” she tells him, still on that defensive tilt. She almost wants to say that if anything, Dan is, because Harry’s been here for a year now and he’s very good at hiding what he really is when he needs to but also sometimes he talks about Quidditch too loudly and enthusiastically, but it still wouldn’t take much to put together the truth, however ridiculous it may be, and Dan hasn’t managed that yet. “He’s been reading a lot lately.”

“Your company boring him?” Dan asks, but his smile is teasing and Blair dismisses the last five minutes with a blink.

“Of course not,” she tells him and then she tells about Harry falling into books in a way she hasn’t since she was much younger with a less secure hold on the world. He starts small and British, Roald Dahl, _The Secret Garden, The Little White Horse_ , and then he expands to the rest of the world, leaping through Truman Capote’s works in just under a week. Blair can't shake the expression on his face when he'd read _In Cold Blood_ , knowing what he was thinking, imagining, from his own past, his own family, and being unable to offer him more than a hand on his shoulder, a kiss on his cheek, and the recommendation of Oscar Wilde for something slightly lighter-hearted. Then he had found the stacks of battered paperbacks in her wardrobe, going against Blair’s recommendations and reading Vonnegut, coming out the other end with a scowl and confusion rolling off him. Blair had held off her _told you so_. When she had left him this morning he had been laughing at something in _Lord of the Rings_ , saying Tolkien's interpretation of elves is ridiculous and shouting bye while laughing at the magic performed by Galadriel. “He hasn't had a lot of time to read,” she tells Dan.

“What's he been doing, saving the world?”

And Blair rolls her eyes and says, “Something like that,” while making a note to ask Harry if she can tell Dan about magic if only to make things easier. Serena’s been fine with it so far, barely acknowledging that her best friend’s boyfriend can transfigure her table into a horse and back again, a fan when Harry can Apparate across the city with her on his arm when she's late for a meeting.

“Maybe I'll tell him to read your books next,” she suggests, smiling sweetly. “He's a fan of fantasy.”

“Ha,” Dan laughs, dry. “That must be what he feels like here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Last time I met the guy he looked like he had no idea what he was doing here.”

Blair’s bored of talking about Harry. She came here to relax, not spend half her time defending her boyfriend to someone who has no right to be making comments like these. “He wants to marry me,” she says, quietly, because she was born to have the last word of every conversation but also she hates the way she says it, almost triumphant, because out of all her past relationships it seems so few didn’t end in marriage and one of them is standing beside her.

“Yeah?” he says, no envy is his voice because he’s marrying Serena van der Woodsen and who’d want to marry twice-divorced Blair next to the star prize. Well, Harry does. “What are you going to tell him?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” Blair sighs and then leads the way to the exit of the exhibition; this trip has been useless. “And it’s not any of your business, anyway, is it, Humphrey? Focus on your own wedding.”

Miraculously that shuts Dan up long enough that Blair is able to focus on the art decorating the stairs as they head for the door of the museum. “Chuck might be there,” Dan says, quietly, apologetically, both for his behavior earlier and his future brother-in-law’s presence. “No one’s really heard from him in a while but I don’t think he’ll miss this.”

“The event of the century,” Blair replies, but she’s smiling, all forgiven. “I don’t care if he’s there, Humphrey. I can handle Chuck Bass,” and the look Dan shoots her in return tells her that he believes her.

They go and get coffee, squashed together in a tiny table by the window in the area skirting Upper East and the rest of the city, right where both of them feel comfortable. They talk about movies and books that no one else they know seems to care about and Blair rests her head on her hand and feels happy, all concerns of her mother gone.

Gossip Girl documents the meeting, framing it as though Dan and Blair are long-lost enemies calling a truce when Blair and Dan were never at war, not really, not the way the rest of them were. This isn’t even the first time Dan and Blair have been alone in public, not even the twentieth or the thirtieth since Blair has been back with Harry in tow, but still she proclaims it a meeting of the ages, what will Serena and Harry think?

 

.

 

When Blair gets home later that afternoon, shopping bags swinging by her side and a stupid joke Dan made replaying in her head, she finds Harry exactly where she left him, the left side of the book considerably thicker than when she last saw him. He folds the book facedown on his stomach when she walks into the room and then he smiles, lazy and big, and when she raises her hands in exasperation at the Gossip Girl link Serena sent her with a wink emoji, he lifts an arm and lets her fall into place, her shoes dropping to the floor with twin thumps as she curls her feet under his thighs.

“Listen to this,” he says before she opens her mouth. He flicks back through the pages, dwarves and hobbits and rings flying past Blair’s eyes, a whole other world she’s not sure isn’t real anymore, and stops on a dog-eared page. “ _All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us_.”

“Poetic,” Blair says, yawning and letting her head drop onto Harry’s shoulder.

“I like it,” Harry murmurs, putting the book down again. He turns to face Blair, awkwardly curving his neck to reach her lips for a kiss. When he pulls away Blair follows him up, kissing him again, hand curving to the nape of his neck. She feels tired and weary but she’s enjoying the content that settled within her as soon as she stepped through the door and saw Harry lying there. She’s always been very invested within her various relationships, always wanting everything and waiting for nothing. With Harry she’s reached the stage of knowing what she needs and what he needs and how to get all that they want without that dizzying, disorientating rush of fear and anxiety that seemed to track her with everyone else. Of course they have their bumps and their falls, sometimes going at least two days without talking, but, and she’s said this from the very beginning, Harry is always easy to come back to, to be with, and she doesn’t want to let her hopes climb they always seem to do, but this time it really feels right. She really thinks she could stay here, this way, with Harry, forever.

“I like _you_ ,” she whispers, drawing back from the kiss to look Harry in the eye.

He smiles at that tiny little statement, his eyes that blend of green that reminds Blair of the four leaf clover she found in Central Park with Serena so many years ago now, and when he shuffles closer, arm nudging hers, the book falling to the floor, Blair tries desperately not to jinx anything.

“Blair,” Harry says just as quietly. “All those times I asked you before, about marriage, I didn’t want to pressure you, so you can pretend they don’t mean anything if you want and that’s fine I’ll drop it, but with this time that has been given to me, this time I wasn’t meant to have when I went to the Forest five years ago, I want to make the most of it, and,” he ducks his head now, losing steam, and Blair is putting everything into not looking away and ruining it, “and,” he continues, “I want to spend it with you. We’ve been having fun, we’ve been living the way we should, and it all feels so overwhelmingly easy and right I’m scared to say anything that might change that but I don’t think I can’t not say it any longer.”

“Come on, Harry,” Blair says, mouth inches from his, gaze never wavering. “You know the answer.”

Which spurs him on a little, that funny lopsided grin already in place even as Blair can feel the clamminess of his palms on her waist where her shirt has ridden up. “Marry me, Blair?”

You would think that maybe third time around that question wouldn’t be so thrilling but still Blair’s heart is racing and her mouth is stretching so big into a smile she can’t kiss Harry properly, her teeth clacking with his making them both laugh, giddy with the rush of committing to something much bigger than either of them. She doesn’t want to say this, for fear that it’s something she felt then forgot with both men before him, but she has never felt this lucky, this content, this _happy_ , with anyone else. There’s no second-guessing here, no hidden politics, just this chance encounter on an Italian marina with a man she wouldn’t have expected to spend the next ten minutes with, never mind the next year and a half, and then the promise of the rest of their lives.

Harry kisses her, properly this time, and Blair falls into it, body nudging up against his as she moves closer, hand searching for hers somewhere between their bodies. Before she can tangle their fingers together Harry mutters a spell against her mouth and then fumbles with something in his hand.

“I’ll get you a better one,” he promises as he slides the plain silver ring onto her finger. “But I wanted you to have something for just now.”

“You romantic, Harry,” Blair laughs, leaning in to kiss him again. She can’t get enough. She never wants to get enough. She wants to feel this way for as long as she lives, and then some.

  
  



End file.
